Meta

Category: Microsoft

That the Windows 8 Task Manager in simple view is very similar to the Mac OS X Force Quit window is not surprising. What’s interesting is that Microsoft apparently arrived at this design via telemetry data and user observation. I doubt Apple used mountains of data to come up with what seems like an obvious design.

To the Windows 8 team’s credit, the expanded view’s resource consumption heatmap and contextual command to search the web for a process name are nice additions that I’d be happy to see Apple steal for the Activity Monitor on OS X.

I know Microsoft conducted extensive research and design testing on their Office 12 Ribbon (essentially a tabbed contextual toolbar), but the Scout project from Microsoft Research makes me wonder just how much of an improvement it is.

Someone obviously thinks a search mechanism for toolbar commands would be helpful.

There are several dozen picture-related commands in a word processor. Yikes.

I hope the new toolbar is an improvement, but this makes me suspect that it is akin to what Alan Cooper calls corpse painting; no amount of work is going to resurrect the patient.

As part of a series of Mac Pro performance tests before putting down for a new system, I watched the 1080p trailer for The Departed, looking for smoothness in playback and scaling. No problems there, but I did catch a mighty fugly interface in the trailer itself.

“These guys are really quite scared,” said the source of Microsoft’s management. “It shows how their backs are against the wall…. Even though it’s Microsoft, no one is interested in what we have to offer, even our own employees.”

I wonder why… Dave Fester, GM of the Windows Digital Media division:

“I sure hope Microsoft employees are not buying iPods. We have great alternatives.”

Apparently, several Microsoft executives have tried these alternatives, utterly failing to encounter the greatness that Mr. Fester claims they exhibit:

The Microsoft manager [the anonymous source] said he’s heard from several executives who dutifully bought Microsoft-powered players, tried them, failed to get them working, and returned them in favor of an iPod. He went through the same experience, he said.

“I don’t really care if it pisses them off,” he said. “I’ll argue why they’re doing it wrong. If you want me to stop using it, give me a product that works and is as easy to use.”

Update: The wording is somewhat ambiguous, but I think the bit about Microsoft executives having trouble with Microsoft-powered players is from Wired’s anonymous source, not Robert Scoble.